


Shattered Hearts

by DarkArchangelofVengeance



Category: Daredevil (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Episode: s01e10 Nelson v. Murdock, Fix-It, Fix-It of Sorts, Foggy doesn't leave this time, Gen, He doesn't even show up but his dickishness is prominent, How It Should Have Gone, Matt Murdock Deserves Better, Matt Murdock has trust and abandonment issues, People need to stop leaving Matt, People really need to stop accusing Matt of not being blind too, Stick is a dick, leaving him only makes them worse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-08
Updated: 2019-09-08
Packaged: 2020-10-12 16:34:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20567453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkArchangelofVengeance/pseuds/DarkArchangelofVengeance
Summary: Foggy is confronting Matt about being a vigilante and having super senses. But what if, when Foggy accused Matt of being able to see, Matt defended himself more. What if more things, like Matt's severe abandonment issues, came to light? What if Foggy realized that his best friend only lied to him because he was terrified of being abandoned again. Basically, what if Foggy actually listened to Matt and acted like he cared about his best friend and didn't leave him just like everyone else.





	Shattered Hearts

**Author's Note:**

> So, I initally wrote this story, because I'm seriously pissed about the way just about everyone thinks Matt can suddenly see when they find out he's Daredevil. Like, seriously, that's not how it works. And when Foggy didn't listen to him when he explained that he was still blind, he just had enhanced senses, and Foggy came out of it thinking Matt could actually somehow see... that really pissed me off. A lot of things Foggy said in Nelson V. Murdock really pissed me off, though. This fic kind of fixes it, though, and this time, Foggy realizes that yes, Matt IS blind and that Matt has severe trust and abandonment issues that he was somehow oblivious to which is why he didn't tell Foggy about his enhanced senses because he thought he would leave, too.

“So you can see?”

“That’s not—You’re not—Are you even listening to what I’m saying?” Matt asked.

“Yeah, world on fire, I got it,” Foggy snapped. “But you can see, right?”

Matt took a deep breath, his body wracked with pain, wishing there was a better way to explain his enhanced senses. He couldn’t see anything. He was one hundred percent blind with no light perception. The world on fire was a mental picture in his head, not an actual thing he saw with his eyes. It was nothing more than an image he conjured in his mind thanks to his radar sense combined with what he could hear, smell, taste, and feel. And sure, sometimes he wished said mental picture wasn’t a raging mass of red and orange fire giving him an impression of what the world around him might look like, but it was still nothing more than a picture in his head. It wasn’t actually real. He couldn’t actually see. Foggy had already accused him of not actually being blind—as if he would go around pretending to not be able to see anything to garner some kind of sympathy, as if he would want to deal with all their pitying looks, and he knew they were pitying even if he couldn’t see them, pity had a strong scent, as if he would want to deal with the ableism he often faced—just like he had brought up the fact that Matt knew Claire was hot, as if he could tell she was an attractive woman by looking at her. Matt couldn’t see Claire. He was able to tell she was likely an attractive woman based on the pleasant sound of her voice, the sweetness of her scent, the way she felt in his arms… he had no idea what she looked like, and he could care less if she had a blemish or wasn’t wearing makeup. But Foggy had always been annoyed that somehow Matt always was drawn to attractive women—it’s because he likes their voices and their scents—the same way he seemed to believe that Matt was hooking up with another woman every other night when in reality, he was out beating the hell out of criminals. Foggy believed Matt was promiscuous, and sure he had had relationships and he had never really corrected Foggy, but Matt wasn’t actually promiscuous. Sure, he wasn't exactly a good Catholic boy who didn't have pre-marital sex, but he didn't sleep with every nice-sounding/smelling woman he came across. He’d also had one relationship where he was with the “wrong girl”—Elektra—and now Foggy believed he was a bad judge of character when it came to women. Foggy believed he hooked up with random strangers—did he think Matt wanted an STD or something? 

Matt took a deep breath. His thoughts were getting off topic. He had to explain to Foggy that he really was blind. If you shined a light in his eyes, his pupils wouldn’t react. Because he was blind. One hundred percent, no light perception. And even if he could still see silhouettes or outlines, that still wouldn’t make him any less disabled. Just because Matt had enhanced senses didn’t mean he hadn’t lost one of them.

“I-In a manner of speaking,” Matt stammered out. “But I—”

“No! No manner!” Foggy exclaimed, cutting him off. He moved toward Matt, his motions quick, and flipped him off. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

Matt swallowed hard. “One,” he whispered.

Foggy put his hand down. “All these years, I actually felt sorry for you.”

“I didn’t ask for that,” Matt said. “I never—I never asked for that.”

“Yeah, I didn’t ask to be lied to!” Foggy snapped. “I thought we were friends.”

“We are,” Matt said. “You’re telling me you’ve never kept anything from me?”

Foggy was silent.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Matt said.

“It’s not the same thing,” Foggy said. “It’s not something as big as this.”

“You don’t understand,” he said with a shake of his head. “And how can I expect you to? You won’t even listen when I try to explain my other senses to you now. You think it suddenly means I can see just because I create a mental picture in my head that looks like a world on fire—which I wish it didn’t by the way. I wish it looked like literally anything else. You think this suddenly means I can use my eyes. But guess what? They. Don’t. Work. I can’t see anything. Not even an outline of something, which by the way, would still make me legally blind. The reason I’m able to do what I can do is because the rest of the senses I still have are enhanced from the chemicals that blinded me in the first place. And the fact that I didn’t tell you doesn’t mean we’re not friends. I didn’t even tell my dad about them after it happened. I’ve never actually told anyone. When people find out—like you just did, like Claire did—it’s because I didn’t have a choice. You figured it out on your own. Me not telling you doesn’t mean I don’t care about you. I just…”

“What? You don’t trust me?” Foggy demanded.

“I…” Matt took in a deep, shuttering breath, memories swirling through his mind. The day his father told him while drunk after one of his fights that his mother left them because they were cursed, because they’ve “got the devil in them”, the day his father chose his ego over a life with his son, the day he showed Stick an ounce of affection and Stick left him, telling him he couldn’t help him anymore because Matt was too weak, too soft, because he couldn’t be what he wanted him to be, the day Elektra left him for similar reasons, because he wouldn’t kill the man who murdered his father and make her happy. He couldn’t be what she wanted him to be either. He couldn’t be what any of them wanted to be, and now he couldn’t be what Foggy wanted him to be: his helpless best friend who would probably die if he was attacked, who didn’t have enhanced senses, who wasn’t a vigilante. He couldn’t be that, though. Those weren’t the cards that were dealt to him. “I don’t trust anyone,” he confessed.

Matt was surprised to say it out loud, half because he wasn’t even sure he realized it himself until the words were out of his mouth, but it was true. Any time he had ever trusted someone, they had hurt him. And to tell Foggy about his senses… God, what if he was as angry with him as he was right now back then? What if he’d freaked out and left? What if he accused Matt of lying to him? Of course, Matt could always give him proof, but back then, enhanced people weren’t exactly well known. The only enhanced person from history was Captain America, but Steve Rogers had selflessly gone down in ice decades prior and the world had returned to “normal”. Except it was never normal, was it? There had always been people like Matt running around on this planet, hadn’t there been? 

We all just used to be better at hiding, he thought to himself.

“You don’t trust me,” Foggy shook his head. “When have I ever given you a reason not to?”

Matt clenched his eyes shut tight, trying to keep tears from leaking out of them, and failing as two slid down his cheeks, one from each eye, escaping from their corners. “Th-That’s n-not… You’ve never given me a reason not to, Foggy. I just… I don’t know how… no one else ever gave me a reason to until it was too late and they did and they l-left and I… I was alone again. I… I didn’t want to tell you, because I didn’t know how, and I was afraid you’d think I was a f-freak or th-that I was l-lying t-to you. And then you’d leave, and I… I didn’t want you to leave. I’d n-never had a friend before. Never let myself, because Stick—he always said that connections would make me weak, he said that if I let myself have friends, that they would suffer and I would die, but when we met, I… I was selfish, I know, but I wanted to be your friend, I—”

“Whoa, Matt, slow down,” Foggy said, and then he was moving closer to Matt, sitting down on the edge of the couch, and Matt could tell from his radar sense and his enhanced hearing that Foggy was looking down into his face, but his own eyes were still unfocused, because he couldn’t see his best friend. 

“Who the hell is Stick?” Foggy asked him.

“He’s the one who taught me how to fight,” Matt admitted. “He trained me. He was blind like me. Sort of like me. He had enhanced senses, too.”

“A blind old man teaches you the ancient ways of martial arts? You do realize that’s the plot to Kung Fu, right?” Foggy said.

Matt swallowed hard. “I know how it sounds,” he said. “But it is the truth.”

“How am I supposed to know if you’re telling the truth or not anymore?” Foggy asked. “You lied to me. Since the day we met.”

“I-I kn-know,” Matt’s voice broke. “I know. I-I’m so-sorry.”

He reached out a hand and found Foggy’s pulling it up to rest on his chest, right over his heart. “Feel my heart,” he said. “If it’s steady, you’ll know I’m telling you the truth.”

“How do you know that, Matt?” Foggy asked suspiciously.

“I… I can hear heartbeats,” he confessed.

“You can… That’s how you knew Karen was telling the truth. You listened to her heartbeat without her permission? You—you can’t just do that. We’re lawyers, and it’s weird, and invasive—”

“I’m sorry,” Matt said. “It’s hard not to listen to them. And… it’s kind of like my version of reading a person’s body language or expression. I can’t see, Foggy. I can’t see anything. So, my other senses help me anticipate people’s behavior.”

“Wait a second,” Foggy said. “You’re telling me that as long as we’ve known each other, any time I wasn’t telling the truth, you knew? And you just played along?”

“I… Yes,” Matt said. “I…” his breath hitched. “I couldn’t just tell you that I knew you were lying. And… generally they were white lies. When they weren’t… I made sure to press until I got the truth out of you. I’m sorry.”

“Goddammit, Murdock!” Foggy yells, and he’s loud, loud enough that Matt winces, flinching away, his heartrate increasing from the pain and from the fear of Foggy’s anger. See, anger didn’t normally bring Matt fear of any kind, anger could be a weapon, a tool to win, but when I person he loved was angry with him…

Foggy glanced down at his hand right where it was resting on Matt’s heart before looking back at his face. “Are you… scared of me?”

Matt stiffened. “I… no? I don’t know. In a way.”

I’m scared you’re going to get too angry. I’m scared you’re going to hate me. I’m scared you’re going to leave… just like everyone else always does.

Once, it’s something that just happened. When his mother left, it was something that just happened.

Twice, it’s a coincidence. His father’s death, Battlin’ Jack’s choice to stroke his ego rather than live a life with his son… that was a coincidence. A coincidence that left Matt entirely alone in this world, but still… it was a coincidence.

Three times… it becomes a pattern. Stick leaving made it a pattern. Sister Maggie, who used to always comfort him during his nightmares, not coming, told Matt that he was a burden on her, that he needed to stop, Elektra leaving…. It was a pattern. All of this was a pattern. And he didn’t want Foggy to add to it.

“Why would you be scared of me?” Foggy demanded. “I’m not the one who goes around beating people up. I’m not the one who made you look like a damn mummy!” he gestured wildly at Matt.

Tears slipped down from Matt’s eyes. “I’m not afraid of the people who beat me up. I wasn’t afraid of Nobu. I’m not afraid of Fisk… not the way I’m afraid of…”

“Are you seriously telling me that I’m scarier than the people who try to kill you?” Foggy demanded.

“I told you. They don’t scare me, because they don’t have any power over me. They can beat me, break me, kill me… but they can’t actually hurt me. Only you can do that. Only Karen can do that. I… I have to love you for you to be able to hurt me,” he said.

Foggy was silent for what felt like an eternity before saying, “Is that really why you never told me? You’re scared I’m going to leave you? Like that Stick guy?”

Matt drew in a shaky breath. “The people I love—or could have loved—always leave. My mother, my father, Stick, Elektra… and n-now y-you’re g-going t-to j-join th-them, aren’t y-you? I-it’s o-okay, th-though, F-Foggy. I understand wh-why. Y-You sh-should. I d-deserve it.”

“You’re a real idiot, aren’t you?” Foggy said with a shake of his head. “I’m not leaving you, asshole. I’m pissed at you, I kind of want to beat the shit out of you right now, but you’re half dead, so…” he gave his head another shake. “But I’m not leaving.”

“You—you’re not?”

Matt looked so surprised and hopeful that it broke Foggy’s heart. God, how had he never seen this? How had he not only failed to realize that his best friend was a vigilante with super senses, but that he had trust and abandonment issues so severe that he genuinely thought that if he told Foggy, he would just up and leave him like everyone else apparently had in the past? How had he not realized that Matt apparently thought it was selfish to have friends? I mean, sure, Matt had a habit of not allowing himself to have nice things, but Foggy had always thought that was just some weird Catholic thing, not that some asshole named Stick had told him once upon a time that love was weakness and some other bullshit. 

The sad part was, Foggy wasn’t sure that if this conversation had gone differently if he would have stayed. If Matt had withdrawn into himself, if he hadn’t so readily started crying about how terrified he was of people leaving him, if it hadn’t become such an obvious reason why he would keep secrets—even if Foggy was still furious with him for lying—he might have left him. He might have just become another name on a long list of people who had up and left Matt Murdock when things got tough for whatever reason.

I can’t be one of those people, Foggy thought to himself. I can’t bail on him, too.

“No, buddy, I’m not leaving you,” Foggy said, making his voice a little gentler than it had been. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m still mad at you, but I’m not leaving. Now you’re going to tell me everything. Don’t leave a damn thing out. I’m keeping my hand on your heart to, to make sure you tell the truth. And to get a little payback for all the times you listened to mine. Now, start talking.”

And Matt… Matt let out a small, breathy noise that sounded like a mix between a gasp and a shocked laugh. The look of relief that crossed over his face, the way fresh tears slipped down from his eyes, the shock that was so evident it was like getting hit by a truck… it shattered Foggy’s heart. Matt was expecting him to leave. He was expecting to be alone again, and now that he’s not… he could hardly believe it’s actually happening, that someone was actually staying even after he’s failed to be what they want.

Foggy felt his own eyes start to burn and sting with unshed tears. How had he never seen this? He stayed silent, as Matt drew in a deep breath, and began to tell him everything.


End file.
